Feds now say Mo. concealed gun list wasn't read

Feds now say Mo. concealed gun list wasn't read

April 15th, 2013 in News

By DAVID A. LIEB

Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - The federal Social Security Administration said Monday that it mistakenly informed a Missouri congressman that investigators had read an electronic list of more than 160,000 people with permits to carry concealed guns in the state.

The federal agency now says that the encrypted disk was unable to be opened.

The agency's public reversal came after U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer held a news conference Monday in Jefferson City sharing the faulty information he had been told by the inspector general of the Social Security Administration. Republicans pointed to the confusion as a reason to press forward with their own inquiry into why the Missouri State Highway Patrol provided the list to federal authorities. Republicans contend that gun owners' privacy rights were violated.

"This shows that there is definitely a need for more clarity from the Social Security Administration," said Luetkemeyer spokesman Paul Sloca. "If there's inconsistencies, Blaine wants to get to the bottom of it."

House Speaker Tim Jones and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer joined Luetkemeyer at the news conference Monday. Schaefer, R-Columbia, said he hopes to elicit testimony before a Senate committee from the federal investigator who originally requested the information on concealed gun permit holders. Jones, R-Eureka, said lawmakers want to find out "the total truth of what happened here."

The controversy over Missouri's concealed gun permit holders began in early March, when Republicans touted a lawsuit challenging a new procedure for issuing Missouri driver's licenses in which clerks are making electronic copies of applicants' personal documents such as birth certificates and concealed gun permits. Missouri licensing offices handle concealed gun documents because they issue the necessary photo identification cards or place the concealed-carry endorsement on people's driver's licenses.

Members of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon's administration say those scanned documents have been kept on a state computer server and not shared with the federal government or other entities. But during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, the head of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said his agency had twice obtained a separate electronic list of concealed gun permit holders that was based on driver's license information and shared that list with a fraud investigator in the Social Security administration.

Patrol Col. Ron Replogle told The Associated Press on Monday that the federal investigator had looked into whether a particular person had fraudulently obtained Social Security disability benefits by citing a mental illness yet had a concealed carry permit, which his not supposed to be issued to people who have been judged mentally incompetent. Because of that one case, the investigator wanted to review Missouri's list of concealed gun permit holders as a means of looking for other potential disability fraud cases, Replogle said.

As he told senators last week, Replogle reiterated Monday that the investigator was unable to read either the disk originally provided in November 2011 or a second disk of information provided this January.

The Social Security Administration on Friday had told Luetkemeyer and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the second disk was able to be read. But the agency said Monday that was incorrect.

"In sum, although this office twice received disks containing data identifying Missouri concealed carry permit holders, we were never successful in opening the files or viewing this data," Jonathan Lasher, the agency's assistant inspector general for external relations said in an email Monday. He added: "We regret any confusion our earlier statement might have caused."

Yet even with that acknowledgment, there appear to be other areas of confusion.

For example, Luetkemeyer said Monday that he was told the request for the concealed guns list originated from a "brainstorming situation" in which federal investigators met in Kansas City with someone from the Highway Patrol in November 2011. Replogle said he was unaware of any face-to-face meeting before the request was received by email.

Luetkemeyer also said federal officials didn't appear to be looking into any specific instance of fraud.

"I'm not sure a fishing expedition would be the proper word, but they thought it would be a way to sort of, again, filter through the system and find some folks," Luetkemeyer said.

One fact that has remained consistent is the assertion that federal investigators destroyed the computer disks without using them or sharing the information with other federal agencies.

Luetkemeyer said he was told by Patrick O'Carroll, the inspector general of the U.S. Social Security Administration, that the request for information was legal but should have followed agency protocol to be put in writing.

Yet some Republican lawmakers remain skeptical of the motivation for the request, partly because of their opposition to President Barack Obama's gun-control proposals.

"I'm sure the current administration would like a nationwide database of gun owners," state Rep. Mark Parkinson, R-St. Charles, said during a House committee hearing Monday about the concealed guns list. "It wouldn't surprise me if that's what's going on in all 50 states."

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EARLIER COVERAGE

By DAVID A. LIEB

Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A federal investigator in the U.S. Social Security Administration violated protocol by making a verbal request for a list of people with Missouri concealed gun permits, Missouri Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer said, but a top federal official assured him the information never was used by any federal agency.

Luetkemeyer said he spoke with Patrick O'Carroll, the inspector general of the U.S. Social Security Administration, who told him that a Missouri-based investigator for his agency had recently requested and received an electronic copy of the list of concealed gun permit holders from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

During Senate testimony last week, the head of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said that a federal investigator was unable to read the disk and then destroyed it. Luetkemeyer said he was told by O'Carroll that the federal investigator was able to open and read the disk.

"The disk did open and when they found that they had 160,000 people's names and permit numbers and everything, they realized this was not the information they need to have, so again, they destroyed the information," Luetkemeyer told The Associated Press.

"The inspector has given me assurances that the information was not utilized in any way by his department," Luetkemeyer added. "It was not shared with any other Social Security department or any other government agency."

Luetkemeyer was scheduled to hold a news conference Monday to discuss what he has learned from federal officials about two incidents in which a Social Security fraud investigator was provided with details on Missouri concealed gun permit holders. In the first case, in November 2011, the disk was unable to be opened, Luetkemeyer and state Highway Patrol officials have said. But details have diverged about the second instance.

Republican lawmakers have described the sharing of information as a violation of gun owners' privacy rights; members of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon's administration have described it as a legal exchange of information between law enforcement agencies.

Within the past month, Republican lawmakers have issued a subpoena, convened investigatory hearings and held news conferences about the ordeal while suggesting that state officials should be fired or - perhaps- even charged with a state misdemeanor crime for revealing information about concealed gun permit holders.

Luetkemeyer said he was told by the Social Security inspector general that the investigator had a legal right to seek the information but that the verbal request ran contrary to protocol stipulating that it should have been made in writing.

"It was a verbal request and, again, it was probably inappropriate," Luetkemeyer said.